What I'm hoping to do though is to ground my extrapolations in specificity, and to make sure that the story I tell is deliberately and honestly told.

An untrampled scorpion troubles no one.

Laws are a fine thing on paper, but painful when no bribery can ease their bind.

The problem with surviving was that you ended up with the ghosts of everyone you’d ever left behind riding on your shoulders.

Suicide is not something I owe you or yours.

Knowledge is simply a terrible ocean we must cross, and hope that wisdom lies on the other side.

Killing isn't free. It takes something out of you every time you do it. You get their life; they get a piece of your soul. It's always a trade.

I'm a chess piece. A pawn,' she said. 'I can be sacrificed, but I cannot be captured. To be captured would be the end of the game.

The surfeit of bad trends pushes me to set my stories in worlds which are often diminished versions of our own present.

The future looks a bit bleak to me.

But then, that was the problem with pretty toy stitches. When real life got hold of them, they always tore out.

I have never been good at saying goodbyes to people. What else can they offer rather than a reciprocal desolation?

Have no friends not equal to yourself.

It is necessary to iterate and reiterate that prayer, as a mere habit, as a performance gone through by routine or in a professional way, is a dead and rotten thing.

I want to - on behalf of myself, and I think on behalf of a majority of the American people, say that, you know, our word is good.

But in my mind I've always been a solo artist- I've just been working with a lot of great people like Kanye and Alicia Keys and Jay-Z.

In life most of us are highly skilled at suppressing action. Bad improvisers block action often with a high degree of skill. Good improvisers develop action.

Faith, courage, optimism, looking forward, bring us new life and more life. Futility, frustration, living in the past are not only characteristic of 'old age'; they contribute to it.

Time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart.

When you have a problem, if you tell the truth, the problem becomes part of your past. If you lie, it becomes part of your future.

Michelle Obama is a powerful example of someone who has learned how to align her actions with her values, manage boundaries across domains of life, and embrace change courageously.